THE STRUGGLE FOR LIGHT 45 



of full summer. The change in complexion is due doubtless 

 first and foremost to age and exposure. It is only extreme 

 youth that keeps a bloom. Time and weather must tarnish 

 it. But this darkening is not only a slow progressive thing. 

 In truth, as in semblance, the leaves are darker one day than 

 another, and at one hour than another. Within the leaf a 

 sorting of the green grains takes place, by which they have 

 the power to protect their complexion from the sun and 

 arrest the process of exhaustion. Many evergreens grow 

 darker, even as you look at them, if the sun comes out hot 

 and scorching ; and they pale again, when coolness returns, 

 to a tint nearer their spring freshness. 



The struggle for light is with plants very much the same 

 as the struggle for life. Light is life and darkness death. 

 We have spoken elsewhere of autumn being another, a 

 second spring. In one respect summer appears not as the 

 summit of a year but as the preparation for a new year. 

 The flower is over and the fruit shed from most of our native 

 trees when they are at the full. The elm behaves as the 

 crocus, which is a green bundle of shoots now that all sign of 

 the flower is gone. The leaves, like Shelley's chameleon, 

 feed on light and air, and are busy with the greatest chemical 

 marvel of the world, converting the sunlight into the food of 

 life, bridging the organic and inorganic kingdoms. Without 

 the due share of light they die like bees in a sunless 

 world. It is almost a pitiful thing to see, as one has seen, 

 a shoot of clematis penetrate into a covered place. It waves 

 this way and that ; it grows apace reaching out for food. If 

 there is a crack of light it struggles towards that region so 

 far as its power of growth permits. The leaves acquire a 

 pale green, and begin with the poor material at their disposal 

 to manufacture from light, making bricks without straw. But 

 before the summer is out they are dead, cut off just at the 

 point where light begins to be insufficient. You may watch 



